Soccer and the Gifu Crows
Gifu Crows Nagano 07
So, I’ve gotten back into playing the beautiful game recently. Every Sunday the Gifu boys get together for a kick, and a few times a year we play in tournaments throughout Japan.
We went into the recent Nagano comp full of confidence after winning a small Nagoya tournament a few months ago, where I picked up the golden boot for the tournament with 5 goals.
Nagano was a different prospect however and it didn’t go as planned. The odds were stacked against us when we were grouped with the defending champions and the 2 eventual finalists. We lost all our group games, though we were competitive in all. We had an onsen at the end of the day and took stock of our injuries and knocks. I had had a fearsome clash with a goal keeper which left me out of the last 2 games and concerned I’d cracked a rib or 3. Breathing was a problem. So all the boys went out and over a few (too many) beers at the Saturday night party we agreed we weren’t as bad as the results showed.
Next morning we came out fighting in the knockout round, playing a team much higher ranked (as 1st vs 16th, 2nd vs 15th…). By half time we had given them a footballing lesson and I had tucked away a first half hattrick. 3-0. The eventual score was 5-2 and we took a lot of pride out of that performance. We couldn’t emulate that in the quarterfinals though as our squad by this was the worse for wear.
Well done to the boys and onwards and upwards
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